We’ve got local elections in the UK on Thursday and everyone’s talking about the parties, but who said what in the daily tittle-tattle is pretty much irrelevant when choosing a horse to back. Let’s look a bit deeper at the form.
Labour
Does anyone know what Sir Kier Starmer actually stands for? Labour won the 2024 General Election because the Conservatives had descend into the political equivalent of a squashed blancmange. Well over a year in, however, it seems that Starmer’s government is so focussed on not being Tories they’ve forgotten to have any actual policies.
Corbyn had policies. He was an idiot, but at least he stood for something.
To be fair to Starmer, he’s having to tread a difficult line between traditional Labour, those 1970s Socialists who have yet to figure out that it won’t work in today’s world and a new generation of smug, middle class intellectuals. The left seems to view its prime political objective not as winning elections but as winning arguments against other leftist factions. Starmer can’t say anything, because anything he does say will result in the kind of bunfight Karl Marx himself would have been proud of – and that man loved a bunfight.
That, however, is the national story. We’re talking about local elections and there are many local Labour councillors who do stand for something. The goal of the Labour movement is to level the playing field across society, to bring the poor up a bit and, yes, bring the rich down a bit. Labour councils typically try to improve local services, which benefit everyone, and invest in the most deprived neighbourhoods.
If you’re living in an urban area, if you’re living in rented accommodation, if you often find that there’s too much month left at the end of the money, Labour is one of the prime candiates.
Conservatives
Just about maintained credibility with Theresa May, then lost it completely with Truss and Johnson. Now going through some sort of mass hallucination that Badenoch could even lead a WI meeting, much less a national party. Fortunately, it seems incredibly unlikely that the party is going to win another general election, possibly ever.
Back when the political right became a thing, it basically stood for three things: traditional nationalism, social conservatism and economic liberalism. Back then, it worked.
The problem they have now is that global communications and eCommerce have removed borders from the economic liberalism. You can’t be the party of prosperity and the party of nationalism any more. In 2016 the internal party bunfight spilled over and, rather remarkably, the finance and prosperity people lost. The Conservatives became the rampant nationalist and socially conservative party. Then Boris Johnson. Shame about the billions that got syphoned out of tax revenue into the pockets of his friends and all the excess deaths due to COVID that we could have prevented if we hadn’t voted a horny Afghan hound into 10 Downing Street. Still, we had a laugh, eh?
Again, though, we’re talking about the national level. The Tory Party does also have its fair share of walruses and horny Afghan hounds at the local level, but there are also plenty of people in the party who very much believe in serving their community. I’ve worked with Conservative councillors, many of whom are hardworking, diligent and responsible people. Their focus does tend more towards local business and economic prosperity (and the services needed to support that). If that’s your world, voting Tory might be your best bet.
The Liberal Democrats
Did you know that the NHS was a Liberal idea? And that they brought in the first implementation of a national health scheme accessible by everyone?
Liberalism is the fundamental principle that underpins our democracy. The left has a bunch of dogma that it’s attached; how they believe that the best liberty is obtained through a five point plan. The right has done the same, with a different set.
Liberals try not to do that. They try to take each issue as it comes and work out what the best solution is. In theory this is great, but in reality it means they spend most of their time arguing and if they do ever actually decide on anything it’s usually overcomplicated and doesn’t work.
Just like the first attempt at a national health service: overcomplicated and ineffective. It took a Labour government to actually make it work.
If the left believe in levelling the playing field along financial lines, Liberals believe in levelling the playing field in terms of opportunity. For instance, Liberals tend to believe in strong state education, because if everyone is well educated then everyone has a reasonable chance. That is, at least, the theory.
Today’s Liberal Party is fiercely pro-European. That shows that they understand the global economic and political climate of today. I know, it’s a difficult message to deliver but when we have economies like China and India outstripping the UK, Russia wants to rebuild its empire and America has elected a horny Afghan hound as president, we need friends.
Liberals are great people to have on your team. They’re full of ideas, they question everything. If you want to make good decisions you need people like that around. There have been some successful Liberal led councils, too. If you believe in boosting local business, if you believe in trying to create an environment where anyone can succeed – and not so much in supporting people who don’t (or can’t) take advantage of the opportunities, Liberals are closer to your philosophy than Socialists.
Reform
In some ways, Farage’s person journey represents what I said earlier about the fundamental problem the political right faces here. His parents were flush, he went to a posh school and became a city trader. But he’s also a very, very enthusiastic nationalist. He switched career, from finance to politics.
At a national level it’s really difficult to work out what Reform’s policies actually are. They say things then deny they ever said them, even when presented with hard evidence that they did say them.
The Reform rhetoric is based on the notion that immigration, particularly those claiming political asylum, is the single biggest problem that the UK has to deal with today. This, of course, is hogwash, but it has traction. When people see more and more faces that don’t look like them, when they hear more and more languages that they don’t recognise, it’s unsettling. It’s easy to stoke that, turn it into a real fear and then present yourself as the only salvation from this demon that you have, basically, invented.
That’s what Reform have done and the only policies that we do seem to be able to nail down are extremely nationalistic and socially regressive. They don’t appear to have any kind of economic policy, possibly because not having one is less trouble than having one that couldn’t possibly work – and they don’t have many options for creating one that would.
At the local level, it’s been a shambles, but that is somewhat to be expected when so many of their councillors are new to the game. What we can say, however, is that they’ve failed to find any of the promised savings.
I tend to feel there’s a genuine naivety there, both in the councillors and in a lot of Reform supporters. They genuinely believe that there are pots of money going to waste on “woke” policies and that they’re going to be able to save millions. Then they get in post and find that’s just not true and that the incumbents were actually doing a pretty good job of achieving something with nothing.
Sorry, I got off track. It’s difficult to see what positive policies Reform have at a local level. They promise to reduce council tax but all evidence shows they can’t. There’s not a whole lot they can do about immigration at that level. All I can see we get from them is some rose-tinted view of wasn’t better back in the good old days. No it wasn’t and right now we need to navigate a very careful path forward. We can’t afford to get caught up in some misty-eyed nostalgia about tea on the lawn with the vicar.
Restore
Led by a man who seems to believe that, in the middle of winter, people would set sail in an overcrowded dinghy from France, eschew the leafy South Coast, navigate all the way round Kent, keep going past Essex (understandable), ignore the safe and pleasant beaches of Suffolk and attempt to land in the monumental smeghole that is Great Yarmouth.
Not surprisingly, everything about Restore is consistent with this level of reasoning.
Green
We all know what the core environmental message behind The Greens is and anyone who fundamentally disagrees is either a sociopath or a bit dim.
I mean, there’s a lot of detail that’s contentious, but if you think the basic fact that, globally, we need to reduce the amount of stuff we extract from the ground and burn is contentious then I’ve got some great seaside property in Leicester you might want to invest in.
The problem with The Greens has always been that, along with the good hard science, they have come with a really unhealth slice of hippy woo-woo. It undermines the credibility of the argument when someone goes from talking about projected sea level rises to why we shouldn’t build on lay-lines. That and it’s really difficult to have a sensible conversation in a room that’s so thick with patchouli oil that you can barely see.
Caroline Lucas definitely marked a turning point for the party. She was credible and very rarely strayed into woo-woo, probably no more than any politician does.
And there’s definitely something about Polanski, isn’t there? Starmer’s more invisible than Major was, the Tories are unelectable in the their current form, Ed Davey seems to have his head screwed on but he has real trouble cutting through. Polanski, though…
We know that, locally, The Greens are going to try to do stuff. They’re going to try to use investment in renewables to get people out of fuel poverty. They’re going to invest in public transport because it’s more sustainable. Yes, they’re going to approve all the requests for solar panels and wind generation.
I guess, if you’re wanting to kick established politics in the pants then you have to decide how you view the future. If you’re only thinking about the next 20 years or so and you really want to try to live in a country that’s basically a theme park for a bygone age – and you have simple faith in their ability to achieve that despite having no credible plan then Reform are your choice.
If you believe that we have a responsibility to future generations, in many cases that means your own children and grandchildren, then we need some kind of plan to achieve that. Labour has one, but it’s very steady. The Liberals are a little more advanced, but if you are looking for something radically different then it has to be Greens.
Wrapping It Up
If you want to vote purely on principles, I admire you, but most of us want to make sure our vote counts. That involves a certain amount of reckoning. You might be a fierce environmentalist but if The Greens aren’t going to win in your area it might be more effective for you to vote Liberal.
What’s particularly interesting about this election is the destruction of the Tory Party. It’s really thrown the cat amongst the pigeons and it’s opened the door for the likes of Reform and Green, which makes the whole thing much more difficult to predict.
For most of us, it’s a case of looking at ourselves, asking what we truly believe in, taking a look at the local poll data and then sticking our finger in the air and hoping that our guesswork delivers the right result. In this election, what you think the future of your local area should look like is probably more significant than it has been in a generation.